Behind the Scenes

Personally, June is my favorite month of the year, and celebrating Pride is one of my favorite summer happenings in Chicago. But in light of COVID-19, Pride month looks a bit different this year- there are no parades, festivals, or ways to gather and celebrate, in person, the bravery and resilience of our community.

The last 10 weeks have turned our world upside down and ushered more loss than I believe any of us could have anticipated. But I refuse to let this hinder my ability to celebrate Pride month with you, and I hope that we can celebrate together in a special way this June. My deepest hope is that we can provide a safe space for you to engage, connect, and celebrate with us.

Throughout this month we will provide summer activities you can do with your family at home in your own pride celebrations, provide resources for your family covering a vast array of LGBTQIA+ topics, and celebrate our community through dance, theatre, poetry and music- in true danztheatre fashion.

Usually, there is only one day for a Pride parade, one weekend for Pride fest, one single moment to recognize the beauty and perseverance of the gay community. Let's truly find the meaning of Pride Month this year - honoring those lost to hate crimes and HIV/AIDS, thanking those who are continuing to fight for equality, and advocating for our younger generations that they may never know the pain and tribulations of a world before LGBTQIA+ Pride.

Happy Pride, Chicago. I can’t wait to celebrate with you all this month.

Tonight, May 8th 2020, would have been opening night for What We Carried, a night I have been looking forward to for a year. But tonight we cannot celebrate with you in person or dance with Jean Parisi’s breathtaking art installment. Tonight we cannot show you what we so desperately want to share, to highlight the struggles and successes of immigrants.

But what I am choosing to focus on is the day that we will share this work with you. When we can dance for you and share this collection of stories. The days of Togetherness.

This work would have been dedicated to my grandmother who immigrated from Columbia in the mid 1900’s and worked as a nurse before passing away at a young age.

Today I still want to dedicate this work to my grandmother, one of many whose story of immigration was lost - and in extension, I also want to dedicate this day to our frontline workers and heroes during this pandemic - our nurses, our grocery workers, our doctors, our cooks. To the ones putting their lives at risk for us all. The days of Togetherness will come, and I can’t wait to share this work with you all once we have made it there.